Project Sassafras

 Okay, Crisis One addressed and diverted: Eve did vocal rest and gargled an ocean's worth of salt water and drank hot honey water ("honey is not good and I want to know who is generating this worldwide deception that it is", and also "I had a whole thermos of warm water and I drank it all during rehearsal. I was still thirsty") and absolutely killed it in the musical. I sort of knew she was a lead, and that she could sing, but she had a big solo right before intermission and had the last line in the play and came out for the curtain call in the middle of the three leads and it was kind of insane and magical. She has two high school friends who are really good actors/singers and they would likely have had leads in the musical in grade twelve, but Covid, so the fact that this happened was just... I don't even have the word.

The musical itself was bonkers and sometimes incomprehensible but a huge amount of fun. Every year, arts and science students write a musical that sort of addresses the fact that people outside the program don't really understand the program - it's interdisciplinary, inquiry-based, big on critical thinking and social justice. The songs are parody songs based on whatever the writers feel like - there was Summer Lovin, All That Jazz, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, Thank You for the Music by Abba and some Portuguese one I didn't know but the version they did was killer. Eve's solo was based on a Dionne Warwick song I'd never heard. The musical supposedly took place in 1977 at McMaster and there was this group running around talking about "Sass", the 'research opportunity of a lifetime' (The Society of Arts and Science = SASS, and their emblem is a Sasquatch). 

Matt's brother came on Friday night - he and his wife were both in the program and are now doctors (it's a popular one for people who want to go into medicine). It was really funny that he commented beforehand that the McMaster campus seemed a lot like the University of Toronto, just on a smaller scale, because in the play Eve tells someone to come to the library with her and the person ("Just assume everyone is non-binary, we are a queer-ass program") says "which library?" and she says "THE library - what is this, U of T?" (there is more than one library now).

I went again on Saturday night after Matt had left for the airport to fly to Singapore. I was supposed to go with Jean, my professor who is now Eve's professor. In true Jean fashion, she was going to a McMaster choir performance first and then had to run home to have dinner and then meet me at the show. She asked if we should meet outside and I was like dude, I will go in and save you a seat - she's the former head of the program and an arts and science celebrity, I knew no one would quibble. I said I'd sit on an aisle, and she said "oh, sit wherever you want, I don't mind climbing over people", which made me cry laughing. I was also with Eve's friend Alison who came from Toronto an hour away, and her former suitemate from first year, and her housemates. Friday we sat further back so she wouldn't see us and be nervous (but it's a pretty small theatre). Saturday I said the hell with it and sat in the second row and clandestinely shot pictures and video from my lap with my phone's brightness turned all the way down so I couldn't even see what I was getting, but it worked pretty well. I dropped them at home and picked up Wendy's for the house and left them to go to their after-party. 

Sunday I woke up feeling happy and relieved and ready to get home and meet the next challenge. I swung by Eve's house to hug her and drop Alison at the bus station. The drive home was an easy 4 and a half hours. I got home and immediately collapsed in a puddle of tears feeling like everything was terrible and broken and ending. Then I took a deep breath and chatted online with my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) who was calm and reassuring and sympathetic as usual. Then Eve texted that Jean had invited her out for ice cream with her daughter and grandkids (the little girl adores Eve) and her mother who was turning 97 the next day. We were driving Jean home the night before - she just lives up the street from the university - and she said "and I don't take the bus" and Eve was like "whoa whoa whoa, easy on the personal attacks" because apparently there had been a thing where a girl was late to their class and said the bus was late and Jean (five feet of uncontainable energy, walks everywhere, swims every day, barely sleeps) asked innocently why she didn't just walk, and Eve stood up for the bus girl. So Eve enjoyed telling Jean she had just had lunch before the five o'clock ice cream and seeing her be appalled "because she already judges me for taking the bus to school."

After this I pulled it together a little more. I did a bunch of laundry, washed all the fuzzy blankets so I can make Lucy a bunch of fuzzy nests for after her surgery on Wednesday. I'm still having trouble visualizing exactly what things are going to look like, and I really need it to just happen so it can suck and be on the road to getting better. I joined a couple of Facebook groups about the surgery (before the thing happened, instead of months after, which is usually when it occurs to me that there was probably a Facebook group about the thing I'm struggling with). I nearly noped right out of them after a series of "this is the hardest thing I've ever done" posts. Look, I love my dog, but I had a two-year-old with a broken femur when I was four months pregnant with Eve. I couldn't lift him easily. I couldn't put him in a crate and leave the house. I have to think this is not going to be as hard as that, although I guess I can't distract Lucy with Elmo video games. No judgment though, I appreciate when people accept my complaining without comparisons, and I'm sure this recovery with a big dog would be pretty rough. 

Much appreciation for the support and encouragement on the previous post. I drop Lucy off at stupid early o'clock tomorrow and then the fun begins. 

Link to Eve's solo (I think): https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_12-ooqZI&si=G0qg9na0M-0yan7C